


drifting

by London_The_Loser



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: ? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Bullying, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorders, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, SO MUCH SADNESS, SO SAD, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Stealing, Theft, ahhh, i think I got everything?, i was pressure into doing this im not to blame i swear, idk this is my excuse to make minecraft men sad, no beta we die like men, uhhh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26578015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/London_The_Loser/pseuds/London_The_Loser
Summary: [he couldn't choke down the guilt at night, the kind that crept slowly up the walls of his stomach and out his dry mouth. the guilt that had him throwing up whatever he managed to get down that day. or maybe he was nauseous from too fucking much. he was wasting food, either way.]
Comments: 6
Kudos: 94





	drifting

it was cold today. the kind sharp enough to raise hairs and goosebumps alike, yet theres this niggling in the back of your head that a jacket would just make you hot.

whatever, clay rarely wore a jacket even when he cold feel the cold melt down to his bones. it was conditioning, basically. if he trained himself to sit still with pinpricks in his arms, maybe he could manage to get a few hours of sleep through it. just enough to make him coherent through the school day. although it never mattered much. he had no parents to impress, no future to work towards, no goals to reach. his grades were nothing too important, except maybe to keep him from getting expelled. school was shit, but it was better then the alternative.

grades also held the grave responsibility of keeping _conferences_ at bay. the parent/teacher kind, that is. which- funnily enough- requires an actual parent present. clay was sure that he couldn't make it more obvious, but he didn't exactly _have one of those._ well, he did. but they weren't a reliable resource for schools to somehow get a grasp on clay's decision making skills. 

he didn't need some fucking middle aged pricks psychoanalyzing him, only to send him away to a shelter, a foster home, a _facility._ he could get through his shit on his own. and he had- he had a _lot_ of shit, mind you. clay wasn't one for pretending. but the constant and necessary struggle of living one day to the next was enough of a distraction. he didn't have to think particularly hard about his goddamn trauma complex when he was too busy slamming freshies against locker room walls to pocket their lunch money. it wasn't exactly honorable, but the ache in his chest was easy to ignore.

he made a lot of excuses for himself. constantly. and yes- they were completely... reasonable excuses. he's sure he could get plenty of pity with his very specific sets of excuses. but clay doesn't pity himself, and he certainly never lets himself forget the fact that regardless of excuses, he's a dick. top tier, a-grade, absolute bastard of a teenager. sure, he never gets a kick out of shoving his way past unsuspecting high schoolers, he never feels _accomplished_ after robbing some child of their meal. but he still did it. he still ruined their day for- well. for no reason other than him. 

clay was aware that each person... meant something, to a certain degree. he was also aware that he deserved as much a chance to live happily as anyone else, really. but to take so much and never give back- to pretend that the things he's stolen or ruined were somehow for a good cause- he was drifting. how far could he take self preservation before _someone_ drew the line? did he still empathize with the kids running around with guns, simply because they were doing what they needed to keep themselves alive? when do you _stop_ deserving a fair chance? 

because as far as clay was concerned, breaking some insecure junior's nose to uphold his _reputation_ wasn't essential in survival. shoving a freshman off their feet in the middle of the hall to clear a distance between himself and absolutely everyone around him wasn't necessary. he could survive without the extra thick blanket shoved behind his dumpster, and the thirty dollars he stole to buy it. that shop owner lost fifty dollars because some asshole kid came in and stole his packet of hand warmers just so he could sit a little prettier that night. 

logically, _logically,_ clay knew he was being insecure. he was relying on ideologies nailed into his skull from nights of just too fucking much. but he couldn't choke down the guilt at night, the kind that crept slowly up the walls of his stomach and out his dry mouth. the guilt that had him throwing up whatever he managed to get down that day. or maybe he was nauseous from _too fucking much._ he was wasting food, either way. 

he tried to ignore the bubbling _feeling_ that he was wasting even more space. 

~~~~~~~~~~

clay didn't like nick. 

it was quite simple, really. nick wasn't a bad person, he wasn't cruel or crude. he wasn't a bully or a prick. he wasn't even that annoying. he was just... too fucking much.

nick was in his history class, his english class, and his geometry class. all of that. multiple hours of _nick._

from the start of the period to the end, his goddamn giggles reverberated around the otherwise stoic environment. it was his name being called by the teachers to _shut the fuck up_. it was his voice telling shitty joked with absolute no sense of embarrassment or remorse. and it was his name on the detention slip, not too kindly placed on his desk, smack dab in the middle of the room. 

nick was an enigma to clay. he was jittery, almost always tapping or poking or twitching or shaking. like he was nervous or excited. yet he was somewhat... chill. his jokes, while inappropriate and childish, were said casually. his laugh, while always full of mirth and undeniable happiness, was never manic or loud. he walked leisurely, strolling through the halls like he didn't give two shits about who he might be in the way of or where he might need to be. there was almost a constant slouch to his shoulders when he sat, almost like he didn't see the necessity of sitting up any straighter. 

maybe clay was jealous. clay, who was always strung tight, leg bobbing up and down under his desk while he fiddled with his shitty number two pencils. who kept his shoulders tight just so he wouldn't visibly tense when someone got too close. who stopped breathing in the first two seconds of every fight because he forgot that he could actually fight _back._ the only time everything stopped spinning was when he was high, sitting at the back of the school building or in some shitty alleyway. 

clay didn't like nick. maybe it was because he was too much, or maybe it's because clay wasn't enough of anything at all. 

~~~~~~~~~~

clay went on with his life. sophomore year started shitty, and by the end of first semester it hadn't gotten any better. but that was to be expected. clay's life wasn't all too fond of being _pleasant._

clay never liked chrismas. the last three christmases of his life consisted of death, neglect, and abandonment. lucky, isn't it. he planned to spent his christmas positively wasted. absolutely hammered. clay didn't want to remember his own fucking name, and most definitely wanted to forget the people that gave it to him. because they both left him here on this shit ass earth (one of them at least had the balls to try and take him with). 

he used his savings to buy cheep vodka from the corner store, the bottles too big to get away with stealing them. he drank the entire thing, and some of the other. apparently he's lucky enough to avoid alcohol poisoning but not lucky enough to have a decent fucking life. 

clay slept, and that night he saw his mom. he hated dreaming about his mom. hated how good he felt when she brushed his hair behind his ear, hated how shit he felt when he woke up and remembered she would never be calling him her 'little dream' again. sometimes he wonders whether she would still look at him so fondly if she knew he threw a kid down the school stairs because he called him a retard. then he remembers that she gave up on his ability to make it through this shit-show of a life the moment she tried to choke it out of him. 

clay cursed himself as flakes of snow slowly drifted towards the pavement. wondered if he would be lucky enough to die of hypothermia behind a dumpster. wondered if the kids at school would think his excuses were reasonable. realized he'll never know until he asks them himself. 

knows that he'll probably never get there, and most definitely won't get rid of the sickness crawling in his intestines, ready to eat through his cracked skin and show everyone has fucking ugly he is inside. 

**Author's Note:**

> we- so- um- just imagine dream team + wilbur, tommy, and tubbo just being depressed high schoolers with absolutely horrible lives?? yeah. that's what this is. that's- that's literally all. i'm going to start with 6 chapters just introducing them from their own perspectives and they'll slowly start to integrate into each others lives and- yeah. please be nice~


End file.
